A few readers have asked me to offer up a list of my favorite books. That’s always a tough call since typically my favorite book is the one I’ve just finished (I also typically don’t finish a book I don’t like). Nevertheless, there are a few books that are probably more relevant to MDA and my health and fitness philosophies than others. In no particular order, here are five novels and five from the “health/medicine/fitness” category that come to mind as having shaped my worldview one way or another.

General

In sixth grade I traded Roy Lewis a 5 cent bag of M&Ms for a like-new paperback copy of this wonderful book. It not only cemented one of my first successful business negotiations, I was enthralled by this primal tale of Civil War castaways who had to make do with minimal provisions on a prehistoric island. I still have “word pictures” in my brain from that book. Grok would have been proud of those guys.

Kerouac’s fictional account of some real-life Beat Generation characters influenced many artists who followed him – like Dylan, Hunter S. Thompson and one of my favorites Tom Waits. The book also prompted my own extended road trip in 1977, and led to my leaving snowy, cold New England for the warmer training climate and the rich musical culture of the San Francisco Bay Area. (Beats and jazz, to hippies and rock, to New Wave and punk, etc.)

Many people regard “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” as his best work, but I submit that “Sometimes” is truly the great American novel. It’s a tale of a stubborn, quintessentially American logging family in Oregon fighting a battle against their union-based town. Kesey was also the major force behind a group called “The Merry Pranksters” that roamed the San Francisco Peninsula in the 60’s in a “magic bus” dropping acid, a time which was later chronicled in Wolfe’s “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” Years later I used to ride my bike past Kesey’s compound in La Honda and marvel at what emanated from that group.

Rand’s philosophies helped shape my own feelings on the role of government in society, in corporations and in the life of the individual. With all that’s going on in our nation today, it ought to be required reading for every elected official.

Health/Medicine/Fitness

In the world of exercise physiology, Noakes is close to a god. This 900-page tome covers every aspect of how training (and the training diet) affects the human physiology – the good, the bad and the ugly. Reading between the lines here is what got me started thinking that endurance training really isn’t that healthy.Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky

No one knows more about stress and stress hormones than this Stanford-based neuroscientist. Certainly no one writes more insightfully or entertainingly on the topic. I had always maintained that stress was probably the greatest factor in disease (dietary stress included) but Sapolsky drove the point home so convincingly that I reordered my priorities to stop endurance training and started looking at how I could better control stress through diet, supplementation and alternative exercise.

This book is less than two years old, but it is the definitive work on the history of nutritional science and nutrition public policy. Taubes is not a scientist, but rather a science writer and, as such, is able to objectively evaluate the “evidence” far better than most career researchers. It’s not an easy read, but if you can get through it, you will have a clear picture of just how misguided our diet advice has been – and you’ll become a confirmed low-carber. If you don’t read it, have your doctor read it, and tell him that if he doesn’t, you’ll have to find one who will.

For lack of a better description (and lack of space) this is a history of the world post-Grok that looks at how agriculture and geography basically determined which societies would thrive (develop technology and weaponry) and dominate, and which would eventually fail or be taken over. Luck had a lot to do with it, of course, but it’s a fascinating thesis that filled in many of the gaps in my understanding of how we left Africa and populated the entire earth.The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton

Lipton takes the “genes are not destiny” assertion that I am always touting here to a whole new level. It’s the environment we present to our cells that dictates which genes are turned on or off and who or what we eventually become. No one does a finer job of explaining the concept, including the idea that our thoughts can also manifest genetic expression far more than anyone thought possible. This is the new frontier…

Those are my top ten. Share your favorites and let me know what you think of mine in the comment boards!

You want comments? We got comments:

Imagine you’re George Clooney. Take a moment to admire your grooming and wit. Okay, now imagine someone walks up to you and asks, “What’s your name?” You say, “I’m George Clooney.” Or maybe you say, “I’m the Clooninator!” You don’t say “I’m George of George Clooney Sells Movies Blog” and you certainly don’t say, “I’m Clooney Weight Loss Plan”. So while spam is technically meat, it ain’t anywhere near Primal. Please nickname yourself something your friends would call you.

Great idea, and amen on Tom Waits, even though he wasn’t actually on the list haha.

General:
1. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
2. The Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get On With Your Life – Bill Schultheis

I have to agree with your comments on Sometimes a Great Notion. I had always hoped that Kesey had one more great novel in him. Sailor Song was not it, I don’t think. McCarthy’s Border Trilogy is on my list. I’ve read 7 0f your 10. Jared Diamond is brilliant and readable. Other great living American writers: Jim Harrison, Barry Lopez, Charles Bowden. For philosophy, see Ken Wilber. Bill McKibben sees the big picture as to environment and economy.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with “Atlas Shrugged” which I regard as abysmally bad political philosophy and very possibly one of the worst things anybody could ever read. Look, if you go in for Libertarian politics, read something w/ actual intellectual weight like Robert Nozick’s “Anarchy, State and Utopia” or A. John Simmons’ “On the Edge of Anarchy,” or even John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty”.

On a more positive note, here are some truly great reads:

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamzov.

Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man. (Really a book of great genius; much more so than “The Origin of Species”.)

Out of the list I’ve only read Atlas Shrugged and I couldn’t be happier than you put that on this list! Fabulous book everyone should be required to read (like gharkness said). Since I agree with you so strongly on that one I’m definitely putting the rest of these on my reading list and moving them straight to the top. Thanks for the great suggestions!

Mark, it’s customary in the blogging world to link to the books listed on Amazon so that one could add them easily to their cart. This should have been a no-brainer for such a prolific and good blogger as yourself, as now one must manually input the books to their list.

I’m a huge fan of “Atlas Shrugged” and Ayn Rand’s earlier novel “The Fountainhead.” Her principles of rationality, independence, individualism, egoism, and free-market capitalism are desperately needed today. Consider: If more Americans thought critically about what they eat — rather than just accepting the conventional wisdom, courtesy of government bureaucrats armed with inane food pyramids! — we’d not be in the big fat mess-o’-flab that we’re in today.

Atlas Shrugged (I read it at my wife’s urging, and after 9 of the top 10 wealthiest men listed it as their most inspiring book).

The Road (How can anyone go wrong with Cormac McCarthy? I was introduced to him through a literature and the environment course. The first? All The Pretty Horses.”)

Guns, Germs, and Steel (After seeing just one PBS installment, I went right out an got this great book.).

My current favorite (not on your list)? “Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life” by Gregg Michael Levoy. I’m on my second reading. It’s a wonderful book, beautifully written and deeply insightful.

The Book of Five Rings – Miyamoto Musashi
The Art of War – Sun Tzu
The Day the World Came to Town – Jim Defede
The Stand – Steven King
The Word and the Void + Shannara series – Terry Brooks
Olympic Weightlifting – Greg Everett

Great list, Mark. Those I haven’t read will soon go on my (very long) reading list.

One quibble, though. Saying Taubes is not a scientist, but is a science writer strikes me as dead wrong. Science is a way of thinking and learning that requires skepticism and empiricism. Published as the Diet Delusion where I live, Good Calories, Bad Calories is the quintessential example of the application of skepticism and empiricism to diet and nutrition. Being a true scientist is not dependent on having the right academic credentials – it is all about how you think and how you approach problems. As Taleb has said, “Gary Taubes is a true scientist.”

What a coincidence; I have “Sometimes a Great Notion,” “Atlas Shrugged,” and On the Road” sitting on my desk as I write.

I often wonder if Kesey and Kerouac were libertarians. Kesey was once referred to as a “psychedelic conservative,” and Kerouac was very much aligned politically with William F. Buckley jr., who once said, “I am 90% libertarian.”

Anyway, both Kesey and Kerouac’s live and let live outlook is very much in line with mine.

I read and followed Protein Power, the first edition, about 10 years ago,losing 30 lbs. I have managed to keep it off but still need to lose another 30. Protein Power Lifeplan has a wealth of nutritional science information and a great bit on artificial sweeteners. I found the science very understandable. I also like Neanderthin. But of course, PB is the best!

Russell, I agree that Taubes is more a scientist than many with the training and degree. I was deferring to his own description of himself.

Sheri, Protein Power is a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone. It certainly would have made a longer list. My limitations here were finding only 5 in that genre that were varied in their influence on my thinking.

The Primal Blueprint Podcast

Interviews with Mark Sisson and other health experts. Audio versions of select Mark’s Daily Apple posts each week. “Best of MDA” recordings. Fresh, lively content to help you stay at the cutting edge of Primal living!